Many industrial processes require treating a mixture of fluids and/or fluids and solids. Treatment of a fluid, a mixture of fluids, or a mixture of fluids and solids can be in the form of atomizing the liquid or de-agglomerizing solids carried by the fluid. Current means and methods for effecting such treatment include atomizing nozzles and vibration. The art includes several examples of equipment using these mechanisms and processes. While some of the known equipment is effective, many forms of such equipment have high power requirements as well as other drawbacks. Moving parts, that some of this equipment have, may cause various problems. Some equipment may be costly due to several factors, including high initial cost, maintenance, and the like. Cost problems may be exacerbated if the equipment is inefficient, especially if the equipment has low capacity.
If the equipment is large and/or bulky, the cost factors may be even further worsened by large space requirements. Equipment does exist for producing aerosols including air and fluid droplets. However, no such equipment is only capable of producing liquid droplets of predominantly (over 95%) submicron size.
In addition, many industrial processes require pumping the fluids, or mixtures of fluids and solids, from respective sources to the processing apparatus. Negative suction head is often used for fluids and/or fluids/solids mixtures transportation. Current means for forming negative suction heads include vacuum pumps and flow ejectors. Vacuum pumps have high energy requirements and are known to be heavy, bulky and expensive to operate. Flow ejectors could be relatively small and inexpensive but are capable of providing only small suction head at moderate (≦30 psig) primary fluid pressure.
Therefore, there is a need for an efficient and reliable means and method for atomizing and/or de-agglomerizing fluids, or solids in mixtures of fluids and solids combined with an efficient and reliable means and method for transporting such mixtures from a source or sources to the area where they are appropriately processed. A need exists for aerosol generators that produce only submicron size droplets, and especially generators providing high submicron droplet capacity, such as an equivalent of a liter per minute or higher.
The inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 7,354,029 B1 of Apr. 8, 2008 covered one possible approach to addressing the above need. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 7,354,029 B1 is fully incorporated herein by reference. Treating the process fluids according to the teaching in this Patent is realized by coflowing motive air which is known as “compressed air,” (or any other gas), or “primary air,” and process fluid in a specially profiled annular channel. According to the teaching of the above patent, the fluid, flowing parallel to a Coanda Layer, formed inside a Coanda Ejector, provides an interaction between the rapidly moving air and the much slower moving process fluid. According to the above patent, the application of the shear forces operating at the outside boundary of the Coanda Layer are proportional to a large velocity gradient existing between the motive air and the process fluid, and these forces and gradients shear the process fluid into small droplets. The latter droplets thus formed mix with the atmospheric air, sucked in through an Atmospheric Tube, as well as with the motive air, and forms an aerosol.
While the apparatus and process disclosed in the incorporated patent work well, there is still room for improvement:
For example: due to the presence of partial vacuum in the above channel, as well as the shear forces, the continuity of the contact between the shearing air and the process fluid can be improved. Consequently, the efficiency of the shearing process could be raised by reducing the motive air-to-process fluid mass flow ratio.
The goal of creating a steady flow of predominantly submicron droplets can be better achieved by improving the continuity and reliability of the air/fluid contact.
If the number and position of areas of air/fluid interaction inside the above channel could be increased to become less random, the average droplet size contained in the aerosol would become smaller, thus broadening the area of application of the Apparatus and Method for Treating Process Fluid, said Apparatus being built according to the above U.S. Pat. No. 7,354,029, B1.
The design of the above Apparatus can be simplified and made more efficient by reducing the distance and number of parts located between the fluid intake and the inlet into the above air/process fluid channel.
The better geometrical uniformity of the air/fluid contact areas can be improved to reduce or eliminate the random nature of fluid droplet size distribution in the aerosol.
The inventor conducted a vast amount of additional work directed to improving the performance of the apparatus and method disclosed in the incorporated patent. This work included a great deal of testing and measurement of air and fluid parameters, and led to a radical design modification. A resulting improved apparatus and method forms the basis of the new invention disclosed herein.